


Clothes Maketh the (Wo)Man

by ddagent



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Embarrassment, F/F, Kate Stewart in a Pencil Skirt, Office Romance, Science Experiments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 02:25:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10754805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddagent/pseuds/ddagent
Summary: Kate notices the way Osgood looks at her when she wears a pencil skirt to the office. So she decides to conduct a series of experiments to find out more.





	Clothes Maketh the (Wo)Man

**Author's Note:**

> matildaswan prompted: "Kate notices the way Osgood looks at her when she's wearing *certain attire* and does her level best to wear as much of the suit pants/pencil skirt/certain type of blouse (you choose :)) as she can bc she likes the way Osgood looks at her when she thinks Kate is looking away"
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

“Kate, I’ve got those reports you wan- _oh._ ”

Lifting her head at the sound of Osgood’s voice, Kate Stewart immediately smacked the base of her skull against the underside of her desk. Cursing in several languages – not all of them human – Kate proceeded to wriggle out from underneath her desk with as much decorum as one could muster in such a situation. Thankfully, the drive she’d been looking for was safely pressed against her palm. _No more subterranean adventures for her._ Adjusting her glasses, Kate could now give her full attention to Osgood and the reports she had requested.

“Thank you, Osgood.” Kate took them from her outstretched hands, immediately examining the data from one of their recent experiments. “Any new observations?”

“You’re wearing a skirt.”

Kate frowned, before softly shaking her head. “I meant about the _experiment,_ Osgood! But, yes, I am wearing this _dreadful_ skirt. Met Gordy’s new girlfriend over lunch today; wanted to look my best.”

“You, uh, you…” Her face was blotchy; Osgood’s breath coming out in short pants. “You certainly look good, ma’am.”

 _Ma’am._ She hadn’t been called _that_ in a while. Osgood only called her _ma’am_ when she was accepting her orders, or there was someone of a higher rank present. Certainly never when they were alone. _Interesting._ Bending over her desk to grab the Devon file, Kate’s curiosity was piqued even further when she heard a rather peculiar sound from Osgood’s side of the room. A _squeak._ When Kate turned back around, the young woman was puffing on her inhaler. Flushed skin, inability to breathe, sweaty palms (if the wipe of her hands against her trousers was any indication). And now, after returning her inhaler to her pocket, Osgood was fiddling with the ends of her scarf.

Kate was a scientist. Based on the evidence in front of her, she could produce a hypothesis. If proved correct she was, well, _flattered._ Of course, she would have to test her hypothesis further. “Thank you for the files, Osgood, and for the compliment.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am.” _There it is again._ “I’ll be-I’ll be off now.”

Osgood’s body snapped like an elastic band in the opposite direction, the force driving her nose into the glass doors of Kate’s office. She reached out to help, but Osgood quickly fled. Perching on the edge of her desk, Kate watched her second in command disappear into the Tower’s labyrinth of corridors. A flustered Osgood was not an uncommon sight but this was different. Lust, _arousal…_ all produced, it seemed, by the sight of her arse in a charcoal pencil skirt. Kate was used to men leering after her, salivating over her. Or, at least she _used_ to be. Osgood’s flushed cheeks, dilated pupils was a welcome - and rather overdue - reaction.

If, of course, it _was_ the pencil skirt. Kate would need to make further tests to know for sure.

 _The Osgood-Skirt Hypothesis_ was what she called it in her head, although she never committed the theory nor any of the parameters to paper. She first ruled out any of her normal attire as causing such an effect on Osgood; after all they hadn’t in all the years they’d been working together. Kate made a cursory rotation of her blazers, her checked shirts, her pantsuits just to make sure. But none elicited even close to the reaction Osgood had shown in the office. So they were all retired; returned to the mothballs in the back of her wardrobe.

With that theory disproven, Kate returned to her original hypothesis: _Osgood found her sexually attractive in pencil skirts._ So she wore the skirt again to a staff meeting; noting that most of the men in her command fixed their eyes on the paperwork in front of them lest she catch them looking at her. But Osgood looked. She tried to hide her pink cheeks, her tongue swiping across her bottom lip, but she was unsuccessful. Especially when Kate sat next to her, skirt riding high on her thigh and giving Osgood a peek at the lace trim of her stockings.  

She claimed she needed to pop to the loo but never came back.

Continuing with her experiment, Kate tried other skirts. But anything lower than the top of her knee was unable to elicit the same response. She branched off in another area; theorising that the low cut blouse and pencil skirt combination was the key to it all. She alternated blouses, even wore a high neckline dress to the office. _Variable responses._ After collating her findings, Kate concluded that the pencil skirt appeared to be the catalyst for producing a vivid sexual response. But, then, Kate wore a three piece suit to the office ahead of a meeting with the defence secretary and Osgood went redder than a rhubarb crumble.

_Fascinating._

Kate’s experiment came to an untimely end, however, when her tests began to affect their work. Several members of the alien research team reported that Osgood was working longer and longer hours, staying in her lab well after Kate went home. Yet, despite the time she was putting in, her productivity was the lowest it had ever been. Kate wondered, after examining the facts and figures they sent the Defence Office every month, whether her experiment had been to blame. Whether the scientist in her had overridden the memory of being young and attracted to someone she shouldn’t be. After all, didn’t she remember almost failing an entire module at university because she was attracted to her lecturer?

_You screwed up, Kate. Time to make this right._

Leaving her office and the damning reports behind her, Kate made the familiar journey to Osgood’s lab. She knocked once, twice, before Osgood’s voice called her inside. Kate found her tinkering with some new toy; the static electricity running through the device causing their equipment to go haywire. Yet that spark was nothing compared to the one between them as Osgood’s dark eyes met hers.

Kate was a scientist. She made observations. She noted Osgood’s dilated pupils; those pink, plump lips. The glasses on her nose and her dark hair pinned neatly behind her. She was wearing a tie and converses today; her scarf hanging over the back of her chair. Kate appreciated the fit of her shirt, the buttoned collar she wanted to undo with her lingering fingertips. Seeing Osgood like this – _in this way –_ would certainly explain her own dip in productivity. _A mutual reaction._

“Ma’am, you’re here about the productivity report.” Osgood pushed her glasses further up her nose, coming around the other side of her desk. “I have an explanation. I know you don’t care for excuses but-“

“I’m not here to chastise you, Osgood. I know why you’ve been so distracted.” To make her point, Kate crossed her arms, immediately drawing Osgood’s gaze to the open buttons of her blouse. The young woman fumbled, blushing, immediately taking off her glasses and cleaning them with the edge of her sleeve. “It’s _alright,_ Osgood. You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

She snorted, pushing her glasses back onto her nose with more than a little force. “With all due respect, ma’am, I _should_ be embarrassed. I’m here to work, not to-“

“Fantasise?” Another squeak. “It’s _alright._ Honestly, you finding me attractive has been a huge boost to my ego. But sadly not my own productivity stats.”

“I don’t understand.”

Kate crossed over the lab, adjusting papers and straightening experiments as she made her way to Osgood. Despite the empty office they found themselves in, Kate found it necessary to lean forward and whisper her secret. “Well, whilst _you’ve_ been staring at me, I’ve been staring at _you._ ”

Osgood swallowed, tongue swiping her bottom lip. “You have?” A brief flicker of excitement, joy; immediately extinguished. “ _Why?_ Is there something wrong?”

“No! I find you attractive, Osgood. _Very_ attractive.” Kate tried to put their situation into words both of them could understand. “For you, my pencil skirt elicits a biological reaction. For me, you in button down shirts and glasses produces a similar reaction.” _Namely the need for me to unbutton that shirt slowly and for you to wear nothing but those glasses._ “Of course, as scientists, we require proof before action. So, over the last few weeks, I’ve been testing this hypothesis to make sure it’s correct.”

Osgood frowned, her dark eyes peering intently at Kate. “So you’ve been wearing short skirts around the office to tease me?”

Kate fought down the bubble of laughter in her throat; immediately realising how it all sounded. There was a word for this. Two words, actually. “Osgood-“

“I wish you’d told me earlier. I could have conducted a similar experiment.” She was smiling, now, the light in her eyes as bright as before. “Of course it would have to be a double blind study so neither of us knew we were trying to produce a reaction in the other. But I suppose now we could re-test your hypothesis with an awareness component; using the productivity stats as a measure of successfulness. Or, we could test the biological reaction through a control group.”

 _Control gro-_ “Petronella Osgood, did you just invite me to bed?”

The hue to her cheeks darkened, and both of them immediately reached for the inhaler in her pocket. “Maybe. Possibly. I’m not sure how to proceed given that we’re both attracted to each other. I was rather more comfortable with all this when I thought it was unrequited.”

“I understand. But surely it’s _better_ now that it’s requited?”

She nodded, ponytail bobbing. “It is, ma’am. _Kate._ I still have no idea what to do next, though.”

Kate had some ideas. The first was to lean forward, brush her lips against Osgood’s cheek. Her skin was warm under her touch; the chaste kiss producing short, sharp breaths against her ear. Kate brushed her hand against Osgood’s as she pulled away; reassuring her that everything would be fine. “Shall we talk about it tonight over dinner?

Another nod. “I’d like that. Very much.”

As Kate, regretfully, left her to work, she wondered what her own reactions to Osgood were; what the young scientist’s findings would be. She recognised the tingle across her lips from the skin to skin contact; her ever present smile as she replayed Osgood’s uncertainty and her adorable attempt at a come-on. She further concluded, as she tried to digest the productivity reports for her meeting with the defence secretary the next morning, that moving to a new stage of the experimental phase would _not_ return things to normal.

In fact, Osgood, with her button up shirts and Time Lord scarf, was all Kate Stewart could think about.  


End file.
